You TOONED Into FRINGE – Now Discover How Olivia’s Mind Was Created

At the time of writing, it looks like the majority of the Fringe faithful enjoyed the animated elements that were a large feature of “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide”.

But how was this process brought to life?

Effects house Zoic Studios are the designers behind the curtain. Head past the jump to learn how they used a mixture of techniques to Fringetoon Olivia’s mind.

Andrew Orloff, the studio’s creative director, labeled the project as “an incredible undertaking, from the amazing writers at Fringe to the animation production that is both steeped in tradition and groundbreaking.” He also went as far as to call it “one of the most intensive and rewarding we have worked on in Zoic’s history.”

Here’s more from Zoic on the process of realizing the animation:

Inspired by graphic novels, Max Fleischer and Hanna-Barbera classics, Zoic began the process with extensive character designs for each of the actors who would appear in the animated dream-state. Storyboards were drawn for every scene in the show and were cut together with footage from stunt coordinator fight scene choreography and live-action performances to retain the integrity of the actor performances and ensure that that these unique character personalities translate on screen.

Using a unique blend of 3-D and hand-drawn bush strokes, Zoic created animated characters that strike a balance between stylized and authentic, allowing the subtleties of the actors’ emotions and mannerisms to shine through. The materials and footage from various formats were extensively tracked in Zoic’s project-management pipeline, to effectively organize plates, actor and voiceover performances and feed shot and version notes to the artists from the supervisors and client.

In addition to the character animation, the Zoic team recreated some Fringe sets and designed and animated new environments key to the narrative. These environments, often hand-painted backgrounds projected onto 3-D plates, have incredible depth of field and subtle hand-held float, providing an immersive experience for the viewer.

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Comments

I loved it. It was original, fun and beautiful to watch. The scene where Bell picks up the bottle in his room looked very realistic to me. The pouring into the glass, the icecubes, all done very excellent.
I also liked how the characters were given form. Apart from ‘Mr. X’, immediately you know who was who. The cloud with the word “Wonderful” was very funny and well placed.
Also , the much-hated Brandonate as multiple zombies was fun to watch.
Massive credits to ZOIC for pulling this one off. 🙂

If the Fringe story ever goes to Peter going “over-there” and he gets to meet Brandonate face to face I hope they write in Peter having a Zombie trippy flashback as he meets him. They were awesome! I loved their lurching running!

There is no possible way any other show right now on TV can pull something like what Fringe did in LSD. It´s not just that it was very, very risky; that it was extremely experimental (inception influence/tribute/ripoff notwithstanding); that you could argue that, essentially, `nothing happened` for most of the episode; all that is true. But the fact that it feels so vibrant, so fresh, so familiar and warm in spite of all the intricacies, of all the narrative and aesthetic stunts the episode took: the fact that the characters are so complex, so rich, and we´ve established bonds with them, is what really drove the episode.

At first, I didn’t find it impressive compared to many modern animation works. After a while I got to realize that there was a strong emphasis on conveying the emotions protrayed by the actors, it’s quite poetic and almost a perfect middleground between animation and reality. I’ve seen many animation movies, animes and other cartoons, but this one sounded quite unique in its realistic portrayal of characters. The only big drawback I keep remembering is the animation speed being slow and making the cartoon look weird.

I was actually glad (once I got over the initial “WOAH!”) that the animation wasn’t overly stylized/slick. It had the real comic book feel that yes is initially jarring when it’s in motion with the characters speaking and running, etc., but it just fit Fringe. I felt like I was watching one of the Fringe comics come to life. Not a comic book geek, nor do I know much about them, but I greatly appreciate the time, effort, and creativity it must have taken to put something like this together. No other show I can think of would go to such lengths, and especially not one that was so precariously perched on the edge of cancellation as Fringe was at the time this risky episode was created!